Mixing Quotes Like DJ Anarchocynic: Einstein, Gandhi, MLK & Thoreau

Philosophizing can be stupidly long winded. I know from personal experience: I can blather with the best of them (just watch some of my earliest podcasts).

Here, I begin collecting some of my favorite short but sweet quotes so you, my good brothers & sisters of the Ether, can see some of the best thinkers in history getting to the heart of things in a few words.

Albert Einstein:

Reading after a certain age diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking…

I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

My religion consists of an humble admiration for the vast power which manifests itself in that small part of the universe which our poor, weak minds can grasp!

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving…

Mohandas K. Gandhi:

A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the “still small voice” within me. And even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such a hopeless minority.

Seven social sins: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.

The time is always right to do what’s right.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Henry David Thoreau:

I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.

I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject.

The rich man… is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.

Now, I have been developing the short but sweet aphorism for text messages and twitter. Can you say something potent, uplifting, enlightening, and/or wise in 140 to 160 characters? I call these textimonies. You see these on here every few days. The quotes above are just a few of those that inspire me to get-to-the-point.